We begin our description of the vases of the Greeks with an account of the large vases of rough manufacture calculated to hold great quantities of wine, water, or food. The chief vase of this class is the Pithos or cask (Lat. dolium), a vase of gigantic size, found both in Italy and Greece.[[510]] They are shaped like enormous barrels, with bulging bodies and wide mouths, and answer to the modern hogshead or pipe. When full, the casks were closed with a circular stone, or with a cover of clay. They were used to hold honey, wine, and figs, and were usually kept half-buried in the earth.[[511]] They were sufficiently capacious to hold a man, and the famous “tub” of Diogenes was of this form. On a lamp in the British Museum and other monuments[[512]] he is represented appearing from one, presumably on the occasion of his interview with Alexander. In the vase-paintings Eurystheus takes refuge in a pithos from Herakles when he brings the Erymanthian boar,[[513]] and the same shape of vase is represented as holding the wine of the Centaurs and the water drawn by the Danaids.[[514]] The “box” of Pandora was in reality a large jar of this kind, as we learn from Hesiod.[[515]] It required great skill to make these vases, whence a Greek proverb characterised an ambitious but inexperienced man as “one who began with a cask” (ἐν πίθῳ τὴν κεραμείαν μανθάνειν).[[516]] They were not made on the wheel but by a peculiar process, which is described as plastering the clay round a framework of wood, called κάνναβος[[517]]; it appears to have been made of vertical boards ranged in a circle, like a tub.
FIG. 21. PITHOS FROM KNOSSOS.
The British Museum possesses two or three πίθοι of exceptional size, ornamented with bands of geometrical patterns in relief, which were obtained from Mr. (now Sir A.) Biliotti’s excavations at Ialysos in Rhodes, and belong to the Mycenaean period. In 1900 Mr. Arthur Evans, among the remains of the Minoan palace at Knossos in Crete, came upon a courtyard round which stood a number of similar πίθοι, with decorations of a Mycenaean character (see Fig. [21]).[[518]] These may be considered to belong to the middle of the second millennium B.C., and it is therefore evident that the πίθος may claim an antiquity second to none among forms of Greek vases.
Among examples of later date may be mentioned the large series recently found in Thera by German explorers, some plain, others with painted geometrical decoration; they are partly of native make, partly importations from Crete, and date from the seventh century B.C.[[519]] Dr. Dörpfeld found examples of πίθοι in the remains of the earlier cities at Hissarlik, from the second to the seventh layers. These were used for keeping all sorts of liquids and solids, and also apparently formed part of the cooking apparatus.[[520]] Others were found in the excavations of Mr. J. Brunton on the site of Dardanus in the Troad; they were of pale red clay, with a stone cover. In excavating between Balaclava and Sevastopol Colonel Munroe discovered no less than sixteen, about 4 ft. 4 in. in height, within a circular building, apparently a storehouse; they were also of pale red ware. One had incised upon its lip
, apparently indicating its price. Similar πίθοι have been found in Athens, some having fractures joined by leaden rivets. Large πίθοι with archaic reliefs have been found in Crete, Rhodes, Sicily, and Etruria (at Cervetri); they are imitated from metal vases, with designs of Oriental character.[[521]]
Perhaps of all the ancient vases the best known is the Amphora (ἀμφορεύς or ἀμφιφορεύς), which was used for a variety of domestic and commercial purposes. So numerous are the vases of this form, found all over the Greek world, that they merit a lengthy description. They were principally used for wine, but also for corn, honey, oil, and other substances,[[522]] and to the use of the word as a measure of capacity we have already alluded. It should be borne in mind that the conventional use of the word amphora in speaking of the painted Greek vases implies a quite different form from the plain wine-amphorae, which were neither painted nor varnished; the type of vase is the same, but the painted examples are smaller and stouter, with a proper foot. For the present we confine our description to the unadorned amphora of commerce.
Besides the two handles from which the word derives its name,[[523]] the wine-amphora (Fig. [22].) is distinguished by its long egg-shaped body, narrow cylindrical neck, and pointed base; this form is often known as diota (the Latin equivalent). The base is sometimes supplied with a ring to stand on, but is more usually pointed, in order to be easily fixed in the earth in cellars. The mouth was sealed by means of a conical cover terminating in a boss.
